The Moment
by ardavenport
Summary: Qui-Gon encounters nasal difficulties on a stormy mission with Master Dooku and fellow Jedi.
1. Chapter 1

**The Moment**

- **Part 1** - - - by ardavenport

WHACK!

Qui-Gon Jinn went down on the hard-packed dirt, his nose flattened by the impact.

The first thing he felt was complete surprise. He had been running with the others; he had felt the Force guiding them in the dark. Then a flash of lightning had illuminated the flat, gray shape coming right at his face with just a fraction of a second for him to realize that it was going to hit him and he couldn't stop it. Thunder rumbled over the growing windstorm.

"Qui-Gon!"

He could just barely hear the voice in the howling wind. The wind was getting larger, which made no sense to him, but it was. He saw Master Dooku, frozen in another flash of lightning, reaching down to him. In the darkness of storm and wind, his Master's hands grabbed him, lifted him up over his shoulders. He felt motion, his Master turning and running over the uneven ground. The wind kept getting larger.

Then he felt the pain.

Blood pounded into his nose, throbbed in his whole head with every bouncing stride. It filled his nasal passages and he gagged, choking on it.

Seconds later he flew through the air, landing on a moss covered bank and sliding down to a shallow bottom. Dooku's weight landed on top of him, his Master's robe covering his head.

The wind had grown into a thing. It had become a huge mass of deadly size; loud, thundering and rushing at them. Qui-Gon closed his eyes tightly and turned his head, trying to clear his nose of the fluid drowning him. Sound itself had become solid.

It receded.

Qui-Gon knew they were safe. It would not come back for them. He sensed the others, Master Yewmakkor and her Padawan, Eenid, through the Force. Then he felt Eenid's weight on his legs, covering him as well as Dooku.

A light flashed in his eyes and he winced away from its harsh, steady glare.

"Qui-Gon." Dooku squeezed his shoulder, hard. His head cleared, strength from his Master filling him through the Force. He saw his Master's head looming over him only as an outline of dark hair; he couldn't see his eyes.

Yewmakkor told him to lie still. Her long hair tickling his skin; her paws touched his forehead, his cheek. His nose was hot with pain, but he didn't flinch when her fingers brushed the swelling injury. Lightning flashed behind her enormous head. She told Dooku that he was bruised, his body shocked and his nose was broken, but nothing worse. The wind had diminished to a normal storm that competed with the Wookiee's howling speech, but no longer drowned it out. Thunder rumbled.

A bacta-treated patch covered his face under his eyes. Its cool, medicated lining offered some relief. Breathing deeply through his mouth, Qui-Gon tried to focus on slowing the blood flow, but the swelling was already well along. Yewmakkor tried to be gentle, but even the most fractional motion moved broken edges of bone and cartilage together. Qui-Gon tried to breathe the agony in and let it pass, but it kept wanting to stay. Dooku's hand on his forehead pressed strength down on him, but it conflicted with the healing he felt through Yewmakkor's touch. The Force felt stormy, like the weather around him, inside him. Qui-Gon tensed; he felt as if he was drowning in it.

"The boy doesn't need to be coddled," Dooku said. The Wookiee Master answered with a sharp snarl that Dooku was only making things worse. Dooku's hand left him, obeying the Wookiee's command and implied threat. Qui-Gon couldn't imagine that she would harm Dooku, but the strength and power of Wookiee speech always implied an untamed threat when roused, and his Master retreated from it.

Qui-Gon only saw outlines in the glare of his Master's hand-held light and the occasional sheets of lightning from the low clouds above them. In one flash he saw Eenid's large flat head, her huge tusks jutting upward from her wide mouth and her small eyes, looking down at him with concern. Qui-Gon felt his Master's presence nearby; the familiar strength and confidence hovered nearby, gentle this time, no longer clashing with Yewmakkor's formidable presence. It was so unusual for Dooku to ever back down from anything. But of course, Qui-Gon mentally sighed, his Master did it very well.

The pain lessened into an intense throbbing. Qui-Gon's vision blurred, but other than Dooku's light and the lightning, he saw mostly darkness anyway.

He was lifted to a sitting position. His head rested next to the coarse folds of Yewmakkor's robe, the woven and tooled belt that she wore over one shoulder, and her furry chest. He felt lightheaded, but the bleeding had slowed and it was easier to breathe sitting up, though he could only breathe through his mouth. He inhaled, concentrating again on stopping the bleeding. He felt the Force again, through Yewmakkor's enormous paw, covering his head with its healing warmth replacing the heated pain. She gently adjusted the medical patch that she held to his face. A sharp pain seemed to go straight through his head from his injury, but it did not seem to matter. Yewmakkor told him to rest, her voice a purr that he heard inside his head, over the wind of the storm. The Force surrounded him, his mind interpreting it as a hazy light in the darkness around him, a tingling numbness over his nose and on his skin.

Yewmakkor's long hair brushed his face, his chin, the back of his neck. The smell of Wookiee hair mixed with the metallic taste of blood, which surprised him, that he could smell anything at all. Qui-Gon supposed that he was injured, but he did not feel injured. Aside from his face, his arms and legs still worked; he had no other broken bones, no punctures, no internal injuries. He swallowed blood; his mouth was thick with it, but he did not feel injured.

Another flash of lightning surprised him with sudden blue-white shapes. He shut his eyes. A moment later the delayed thunder rolled over them, not quite as loud as the rumbling he felt next to him in Yewmakkor's chest. Qui-Gon was sure he wasn't injured...

Qui-Gon heard a new sound, unformed and random like the wind, but punctuated with small sharp impacts. It got louder, more insistent. His nose throbbing, Qui-Gon kept his head still. The sound pounded harder and he heard thunder. He opened his eyes and saw nothing, total darkness. The air was humid and wet.

He did not remember lying down, or being moved. He didn't think that much time had passed, but he couldn't be sure. Stirring, Qui-Gon found himself lying on his side and covered with his own wet robe. He didn't remember his robe being taken off of him either. His head lay next to wet fabric, Dooku, he realized. Rain poured down on them from above in heavy waves of water.

Yewmakkor's mournful howl told him to lie still; her wet paw rubbed his shoulder. They all huddled together under their robes. The mossy ground was spongy and wet, but they were not lying in water. Even though it hurt, Qui-Gon forced air out of his nose, clearing it. It hurt terribly and clots of blood came out. Peeling away the used bacta patch, he ducked his head, trying to wipe the discharge away onto the ground and not onto his Master's tunic. He was not sure if he succeeded. Dooku's arm reached up, the hand stroking his head and brushing away the water that quickly dripped down again on him through the robe. Trickles ran down his face. The coolness actually felt good on his injured nose.

Qui-Gon sensed deep concern from his stern Master, and that alone confirmed to him that he really was injured. He relaxed, reassured by the Jedi Knight's presence. Qui-Gon was Dooku's first Padawan and emotion often seemed to flow through their bond more easily from student to teacher. Qui-Gon sometimes wondered how well his Master accepted this, but he never questioned him about it, words seemed so inadequate and possibly damaging. Whenever it reversed, as it was now, Qui-Gon intuitively accepted it. More thunder rolled overhead, but the rain came down with slightly less force.

He waited with the others, at first tense, when he realized that he was pressed between Dooku and Yewmakkor. The two Knights had not been getting along well on this mission; their personalities had clashed over petty things. They were both Jedi Knights, each with their own first Padawan and neither having any more seniority over the other. Qui-Gon and Eenid had stayed silent and mute whenever their elders started sniping at each other. Now, Qui-Gon sensed surprising harmony between them. He would have preferred something less severe than his broken nose to be the bridge that would get them to cooperate better.

Dooku and Yewmakkor had been using the Force to keep him warm, but now he drew it to himself. Warmth spread through his body. He was wet, but he did not have to be cold. The rain lessened to only a heavy downpour; the thunder sounded more distant. Qui-Gon breathed in through his mouth, accepting the pain. His whole face felt swollen and sore, anything that brushed his nose hurt. He had a slight headache, but nothing he couldn't ignore. He also needed to empty his bladder but he suppressed that urge along with the pain.

Yewmakkor moaned about the rain, not in complaint, just Wookiee sounds around Wookiee rain words. Occasionally she would utter Eenid's name, by way of encouragement to her Padawan who lay on the other side of Yewmakkor's huge bulk. Qui-Gon's Master remained silent, not complaining at all about the Wookiee's muttering which had so annoyed him on their way to this mission. Dooku's arm now rested over Qui-Gon's own arm and shoulders. Qui-Gon sensed peaceful acceptance of their situation, of the rain, of the other Jedi and of his own Padawan. Qui-Gon quieted his mind, seeking to emulate his Master's contentment.

Slowly, the rain decreased until it had become a light drizzle. They had not heard thunder in some time and Qui-Gon sensed no threat from it. They emerged, throwing the robes off. The sky was a very dark gray, the first light of dawn still too dim to even see shapes by. Yewmakkor howled loudly about rain and water in general as she wrung her robe out. They heard the water splash loudly on the ground near them.

"Don't even think about shaking all that water off onto us, you hairy beast. Step away from us if you must." Dooku warned. Qui-Gon sensed a lighter tone to Dooku's 'hairy beast' from all the other times he had addressed the Wookiee. She howled back at him about prickly hairless humans, but again Qui-Gon detected a change. The names the two Masters used for each other were hardly affectionate, but they were no longer disrespectful.

They heard Yewmakkor shaking herself out a short distance away. Eenid began wringing her robe out and Qui-Gon joined her. Dooku joined them. All the water splashing reminded Qui-Gon of his bladder. He put his damp robe on and took himself away from the group to take care of it. He used the Force to avoid any holes or ruts or standing water on the uneven ground. A moment later Dooku silently joined him for the same reason. They heard Eenid a short distance away doing whatever she needed to do.

Wiping his hands off on his drying robe, Qui-Gon went back with Dooku to regroup with the others; he thought he could just make out their silhouettes against the dark gray horizon.

The four of them crouched together in the same spot where they had sheltered themselves from the rain. Yewmakkor moaned as she activated the locator. Their ship was no longer where they had left it, and their objective, the entrance to the cyborg's buried outpost, was apparently no longer there at all. The Force would have to guide them to it. They began walking toward the ship, Yewmakkor leading. Qui-Gon followed her, Eenid behind him and Dooku came last. Their clothes dried as they walked and they each used the Force to keep off the chill. Good Jedi boots had kept Qui-Gon and Dookus' feet dry. Neither the Wookiee Jedi nor the Whiphid Padawan needed any boots at all on their tough feet.

Their footsteps squelched on the mossy ground and patches of bare dirt. After such a ferocious storm there was surprisingly little mud or standing water amidst the moss, fungus and flat plantlife that covered much of the plain they traversed. The flat ground seemed to have easily absorbed the deluge. The gray overcast sky slowly lightened.

Dooku turned first and then all four of them sensed the presence in the gloom to their left. They walked more cautiously as the unseen person approached, but no one drew their lightsaber until just before the blaster bolts struck the ground at their feet.

**End - Part 1**


	2. Chapter 2

**The Moment**

- **Part 2** - - - by ardavenport

Yewmakkor howled with animal rage and Qui-Gon froze with surprise as the Wookiee went roaring toward the source of the fire. No more shots came toward them or the angry Wookiee, but they heard a squeal and crack as Yewmakkor's blade came down on the weapon. They could barely make out the outline of the intruder. Whoever it was had dressed for concealment in dull, random patterns and colors.

Deactivating his own saber, Dooku sarcastically commented about rash, impulsive Wookiees. Eenid didn't say anything. They jogged toward Yewmakkor's lightsaber which was lowered toward their attacker who now knelt on the ground. When they got there they found the cowering figure unharmed though her blaster was a ruin on the damp ground.

"Our competition," Dooku announced. They could not see her very well; she looked Calamari, or Del-Agwa, or one of a number of related amphibious species.

"They didn't tell me they were sending Jedi," she grumbled in a high, breathy voice.

Yewmakkor demanded who 'they' were. Qui-Gon silently marveled at the calm he now sensed from the Wookiee. He had felt such ruthless bloodlust from her that he had half expected to find their attacker cleaved in half at the Wookiee's feet; the rage had been so intense. But it had completely vanished, gone into the Force like water into the ground.

Their new captive cringed and volunteered nothing other than her name, Gooly.

They did not really need information from this being. They had seen the Zhoret Union ship in orbit when they had arrived and they had gone immediately down to their objective regardless of the storm. Their ship had been right behind the Zhoret landing craft but they had lost it on their scopes and Yewmakkor had been forced to land. They had immediately disembarked hoping to make their way to the outpost, but even Jedi couldn't fight the enormous whirlwind that the storm suddenly spawned behind them.

Yewmakkor growled about useless errand lackeys and told Eenid to get her up. Gooly cringed when the Whiphid Padawan snatched the back of her multi-hued bodysuit and hauled her to her feet.

There was now enough light to see by. It was a gloomy, half-light where all colors were washed out into gray tones. Dooku's pale skin had an almost white glow, his dark brown hair, prematurely gray in places, looked black. Yewmakkor's robe looked more gray than brown, her fur had only a hint of its rich dark brown color. Eenid, whose shaggy mane and skin were mostly gray anyway, looked even grayer, her off-white tunic and tabards pale on her shoulders, but the light was enough to see faces by.

Dooku turned away, shaking his head with disgust. He paused, his eyes widening for just a second before he spoke.

"Qui-Gon, you and Eenid take our 'friend' here back to the ship." He nodded to Yewmakkor who agreed. "We will collect the cyborg and join you." Both Padawans nodded their heads and the two groups separated. With only a brief glance at his locator, Qui-Gon led. Eenid followed with their captive between them.

Qui-Gon knew that his injury must look very bad to cause his Master to pause like he had, to show any visible shock. He could now see the swelling, crowding into his vision under his line of sight. His nose had not stopped hurting; it throbbed with every step, and ached from the swelling, his skin hot and smooth and stretched. He had just become accustomed to ignoring the pain.

As they walked they occasionally passed broken and twisted scraps of gray plasti-steel, shreds of poles, bent corner supports with bits of wire clinging to them. The flat, gray pieces looked familiar to Qui-Gon. A piece of similar debris has found his face the night before. It likely had come from the outpost, but the whirlwind had been behind them and the outpost had been ahead. Qui-Gon did not know if there could have been more than one such storm, but he wondered what the Masters would find when they arrived at where the outpost was supposed to be.

Gradually, with the increasing light, one feature on the horizon resolved into their ship. It lay crookedly on the ground, one stubby tail-wing plowed into the ground. When they got close, they circled, inspecting the damage. Eenid kept one large clawed hand on Gooly as they did.

The landing struts, front and back were completely snapped off. The rear tail fin was bent, but other than dirt and scraped paint there was no other obvious external damage. However, the ship did not power up; neither remote signal from them would open the door on the side of the ship tilted upward to the sky. Scrambling up onto it, Qui-Gon crouched, balancing himself next to the door on the steep slope of the ship. Relaxing, he gathered the Force to him, feeling the connection from himself to the ship and the door. One palm out, he pushed. With a loud scraping sound of metal on metal, the door slid open a little bit.

Qui-Gon exhaled, his shoulders dropping, the image of the door dimming in his concentration. The mechanism was not damaged, but either the door or the body of the ship was bent somehow. With that and the broken landing struts the ship could not possibly be spaceworthy.

Still crouching, he repositioned himself, his bent legs tucked close to his body. Closing his eyes again he lifted both arms. The Force glowed and strengthened around his mental self-image. It pushed outward to the door, forcing it back. Metal and plastisteel groaned and complained, the abused surfaces grating against each other.

He stopped when he sensed that something else would break if he continued. Opening his eyes, Qui-Gon saw that it was open just wide enough for Eenid to fit through–he glanced at the Whiphid–if she turned her head to the side.

Eenid grinned back at him, her long lips curling back from the two cruel tusks that jutted upward. Her gentle yellow eyes, pale in the gray gloom, smiled back at him as well. Qui-Gon lowered himself into the dark ship. There were bolts on the floor that he used to keep his feet from sliding down to the opposite end of the ship. The ship was dead and dark inside, except for the gray light coming through the main view port in front. Using handholds on the ship's bulkhead, he made his way to the controls.

The screens were blank. Sitting in the pilot's seat, he tried some of the buttons with no results. Qui-Gon leaned to the left and pulled down on the manual power lever. Something clicked.

The ship's controls and interior lights flickered into life. After hours and hours of darkness and a desolate plain of nothing but dark grays there was suddenly color and light again, multicolored blinking controls, blue, padded seats, red trim around the view ports and along the walls. He waited for the computers to reboot and then keyed up the diagnostics; the engines and antigravs were fine; the fuel tanks showed no damage. Sighing, Qui-Gon sat back, head against the backrest of the seat. Even if they couldn't make orbit, they very likely could fly the ship in atmosphere to the planet's one spaceport.

He got up and, clinging to the bulkhead, made his way back to the open door. He saw Eenid's eyes peering down at him from over the edge. She reached down one large clawed hand and he took it, letting her pull him up. She stepped back as he pulled out first one leg, then–

WHACK!

In the fraction of a second before it struck him, Qui-Gon realized that the narrow gray plank that hit him in the face was almost the same color as the thing that had hit him the night before.

Qui-Gon's control shattered when the pain went right through to the back of his head. He fell backwards, down into the ship. In THAT second of weightlessness he saw the rectangle of gray sky receding above him before he hit the deck and slid down to the opposite bulkhead. He heard a murderous Whiphid roar and felt a moment of terror that Eenid would lose herself utterly to the dark side if she killed Gooly. He flailed, trying to get his legs under him, spurred on by the white hot bloodlust that he felt through the Force..

Then it was gone.

The furious rage burned itself out and dissipated. Qui-Gon heard Gooly's high voice yelling loudly about being abused. Eenid replied in a much lower volume; Qui-Gon couldn't make out the words, but the tone was no more or less calm than usual for her.

Even with the pain in his nose, his face, now his whole head, he didn't think anything new had been broken by the impact. He wondered if his swollen face had cushioned the blow somehow, but the pain was heating up. He stopped struggling to rise and lay sprawled on the floor where it met the wall. He now had bruises on his legs, back and arms along with his broken nose. Qui-Gon drew the Force to him, struggling for his earlier control. It came slowly.

He heard noise and more complaining from Gooly. Qui-Gon didn't move, keeping his mind focused on his injuries. He heard Eenid's claws scrabbling on the hull and the open door above him darkened with her shaggy head. Then a squirming Gooly, trussed up with cord, was lowered into the ship, the collar of her body suit bunched up around her head where Eenid's clawed hand grasped it. She was swung back and forth and then landed, mostly, in one of the rear seats of the cabin.

Then Eenid's great bulk squeezed in; she did have to turn her head to get it though the jammed door. Qui-Gon smiled reassuringly up at her concerned gaze, though he feared that it had come out more like a grimace. The Whiphid did not look reassured. She turned her head to growl at Gooly, who immediately stopped squirming and huddled fearfully, clutching the edge of her seat as well as she could with her bound hands.

Using handholds on the wall, Eenid went to the rear of the cabin. She returned with the ship's medkit. She helped Qui-Gon up into the rear seat opposite Gooly's. She buckled the body strap over his shoulders when he started to slide out toward the wall and then picked out a scanner and held it close to his face.

"I'm sorry." Eenid apologized. "I did not see that she had picked up a piece of debris. She had hoped to force me to help you and let her escape." Eenid's yellow eyes flicked toward the amphibian. Gooly glared back, but with her hands tied before her and her legs lashed together she couldn't go very far. Qui-Gon realized that Eenid must have used the line from her cable launcher.

"I didn't see it either," he reminded her. He had hardly spoken at all since the accident and with his flattened nasal passages his voice was flat with suppressed consonants.

She shook her great head sadly. "I was watching, but I did not see. I was watching you instead." Eenid lowered the scanner. "It's broken, but the bones are mostly still in place and there are no small pieces."

Qui-Gon looked up with surprise. He had been sure that his nose had been mashed into bits. The huge, bulging lump under his eyes certainly looked nothing like the prominent and straight nose that he was used to. The swollen mass at the bottom of his vision could not be ignored. He touched it lightly with a finger; it felt hot with injury and the skin hurt.

"The airways under your eyes are clogged with blood and mucus, but they are intact. We should wait until we reach a medical facility to clear them," Eenid said, pointing with one huge claw to where his sinuses should be. She offered him medicine for the pain but he declined anything stronger than a local anesthetic for his face. The pain from the second blow had peaked and declined to something manageable again, but Qui-Gon was not so full of bravado that he would not accept help when it was sitting right in front of him.

Cool numbness spread out from his nose as Eenid next took a sterile cleaning cloth and multi-cast out of the medkit. First she cleaned his face, then applied the multi-cast; it molded to his features and stiffened under his eyes down to just above his upper lip. Eenid held the tips of two claws a short way up his nostrils while it hardened to hold open a space for him to breathe through.

He rubbed a finger on the hard shell now clinging to his face. Even with the openings, he could hardly breathe through his nose, but he knew he did not want the airway closed. He thanked Eenid for her help.

"Why were you watching me?" Qui-Gon asked. "When Gooly hit me, you said you were watching me," he explained to Eenid's surprised look.

"When you used the Force to open the door. It came so easily to you, but you are so young." She nodded her shaggy head in approval. "The Force is very strong with you Qui-Gon."

Qui-Gon knew that he had exceptional gifts for a Padawan of only sixteen years, but he only warily compared his skills to others, as if that would automatically negate them. Dooku rarely spoke of it; he just expected Qui-Gon to give him his best effort. Qui-Gon found that he preferred the simple expectations; he knew that the praise would be sincere if it only came in exceptional circumstances.

"The Force is with you in more than strength," he replied, his brow wrinkled as he tried to form his question. "How did you and your Master...when she attacked Gooly, when Gooly attacked me. I was...surprised by the rage. I didn't know a Jedi..."

Eenid rumbled; perhaps it was a laugh.

"That was the Moment of the Living Force. Killing passions do not run so strongly in your species, Qui-Gon, as it does for me and my Master. It is part of who we are." She put one large, clawed hand to the side of her head. Those curved gray claws were as deadly as a lightsaber; the tips were blunted, but with the strength of a Whiphid, they could gut him in an instant.

"When the anger comes, it is not to be denied. When it comes, it must. It flows through me, but it does not guide me and it flows back to the Force when it is spent." She lowered her head, her yellow eyes downcast. "I do not explain it nearly so well as my Master does."

"You explain it very well," Qui-Gon prompted, hoping she would continue. Eenid hadn't said anything that he had not already learned as a Jedi, but in that moment, he felt like he was really understanding it for the first time. Master Dooku had told him that he was strong with the Living Force, but that only he would know when he was ready to actually learn what that meant.

Qui-Gon knew that his Moment had come.

Unfortunately, for him, it didn't stay.

Eenid rose to run full diagnostics on the ship's systems. Qui-Gon tried to get up to join her, but one great clawed hand gently held him back. It didn't take both of them to issue commands to the ship's computer and she needed him to rest so he could help her later with righting the ship. She moved forward, stopping to strap Gooly into her seat first. Qui-Gon's attacker gave him one cross glare and then turned her head away from him.

Qui-Gon lay back, closing his eyes.

Though he leaned to the side with the ship, the seat's wide flight straps held him in place; he was comfortable enough. His body settled into an easy inactivity. Relieved of having to ignore the pain of his injury, he settled back into a healing mediation. Blood flow and energy diminished where it wasn't needed and increased around his injuries. With rest and proper nutrition his injury could be completely healed in, maybe, twelve days. Jedi healing techniques were hardly competitive with a fully staffed med-center, but they were still more productive than just sitting around feeling hurt.

Time passed with little meaning for Qui-Gon. The little noises of the others in the cabin did not disturb him though the activity increased; he shut it out. Qui-Gon's mind sank deep into the Force; it was all around him, inside him. Qui-Gon had always thought of meditations like these, where he felt almost merged with the Force to be his "Moment", but now he realized that it was static, unmoving. The Moment for Master Yewmakkor and her Padawan was one of motion and action and he felt that even with his years of training, at sixteen he hardly knew anything at all.

Something touched him. The Force rippled around him like a still pond disturbed by a leaf lighting on the surface.

**End - Part 2**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Moment**

- **Part 3** - - - by ardavenport

Qui-Gon opened his eyes and stared up at Dooku's dark brown ones. The cabin of the ship was now level. Eenid sat in the co-pilot's seat on the right, Yewmakkor in the pilot's seat on the left. There was a pink, bald vaguely-humanoid head in the seat right in front of him. There were silver metal implant with blinking yellow and white lights on its sides, just above the head's ears.

Dooku looked quite amiable.

"I regret disturbing you, Qui-Gon, but our friend here," he gestured toward the head which did not move in return, "is eager to be gone, especially now that people know where he has been hiding. And I doubt that even you could meditate through the noise we're about to make." Eenid clicked a switch and the ship's engines started up.

"Especially with that damn door open," Dooku yelled. Qui-Gon looked back over his shoulder. The door was still stuck and if Dooku and Yewmakkor couldn't get it closed then it likely wasn't possible without an overhaul for the whole ship or possibly a scrap yard.

They lifted off and immediately entered the thick, low cloud layer above them. The cabin became very humid. They could not go high enough to get above the weather without entering atmosphere too thin to breathe, so Yewmakkor flew by sensors until they finally clear skies. The flat, featureless plains had changed to rolling, yellow hills. Qui-Gon could not see very much from his seat behind the others, so he sat back and closed his eyes. No one spoke.

Their mission was complete, at least partially. None of the Jedi knew what knowledge inside the cyborg's machine-augmented brain made the creature so valuable, but it was important enough for the Jedi Council to divert Dooku and Qui-Gon from their return trip back to Coruscant to rendevous with Yewmakkor and Eenid who had purchased the ship they were in on the authority of the Galactic Senate itself so that they could arrive at this world as quickly as possible. It had taken them nearly a day to travel together to this world. It could take them maybe two days to get back to Coruscant depending on what transport they could acquire.

Qui-Gon wondered if the trip back to the Core would be as unpleasant as their shorter trip out. Dooku and Yewmakkor seemed to irritate each other personally and they agreed on almost no point of Jedi philosophy. Yewmakkor acted spontaneously; Dooku liked tidy planning. On top of that they seemed to know instinctively what would annoy the other most. Dooku found Yewmakkor sloppy and undisciplined (and she shed hair in the ship). Yewmakkor clearly thought that Dooku was rigid and narrow-minded. Their planning for this mission had been fractious at best.

That was why Qui-Gon had been so shocked when Yewmakkor had gone after Gooly. The rage that had slammed into him had been a real lust for death, as unlike Yewmakkor's verbal swats at Dooku as lightning was to a spark. Qui-Gon knew perfectly well that other species had other temperaments and the Force flowed through all individual in unique ways, but this was the most extreme case he'd ever experienced. Qui-Gon wanted to learn more.

Unable to speak without shouting over the wind, everyone remained in their own private holding pattern until they finally reached Masalkey Spaceport, the planet Eyal's lone interstellar port. They had to declare themselves disabled to Port Control and were directed to a special docking bay. Yewmakkor landed the ship lightly, but as soon as the engines were off, it tilted over to one side, this time with the door facing downward.

They got up and exited. Dooku threw his dark brown robe over the cyborg before they left. This was the first time that Qui-Gon had a good look at it. The cyborg, whose name was Pyax-83, had no expression in its gray eyes, no emotions in its face, and no obvious thoughts that Qui-Gon could sense unless it was reacting to them. It was of average height for a humanoid though shorter than all of them. It had a pale, pink-tinged complexion and a seriously blank and neutral face. It wore a plain and spotless silver-tone body suit on a figure that favored neither male nor and female features. Aside from the implants on the sides of its bald head, metal also showed from under the cuffs of its sleeves, and extended down the backs of its seven-fingered hands.

Their first priority was to obtain a new ship, dispose of the one wrecked in the storm and leave. Others who wanted Pyax-83's knowledge would come, if they weren't already there among the beings they passed in the wide walkways of the spaceport. The portmaster himself met them with a security detail that hustled Gooly away. Portmaster Binny was typical of the native species of Eyal. He was short, wide and more or less humanoid with no hair, thin lips and vertically oriented, black eyes. Dooku gave him and his assistant their priorities.

Binny complained about the damaged ship, the expense of the emergency landing, the lack of available ships for them, and the ends of his mouth turned down with distaste at Dooku's Republic credit chip. Currency exchange was often a problem on outer rim worlds. Dooku advanced on the smaller being, his will and the Force pressed in on Binny, who stood stammering a moment before announcing that he could certainly accept their payment and would return to them with some suitable choices of ships. Dooku bowed and asked to be directed to the port's med-center.

They all went together, Pyax-83 in their midst. They could not be separated. Many factions wanted the information that the cyborg held. The Republic had agreed to negotiate with all of them about the disposition of that information, but all the interested parties knew that this would only happen if the Republic had possession of the cyborg. Most people they passed seemed intimidated by their group and stayed away anyway. Both Qui-Gon and Dooku were taller than most other beings they passed in the terminal, but they were both dwarfed by the Wookiee and the Whiphid whose presence seemed to discourage the curious from getting too close to them.

They entered the med-center. A few bored locals lounged in the aggressively beige waiting room. Dooku and Qui-Gon went to the receptionist desk. The man behind the desk looked back and forth between Qui-Gon and then at Dooku.

"We would like some assistance please," Dooku announced impatiently. "My Padawan has been injured." The receptionist looked quite confused; Qui-Gon sensed it. The yellow-tinged, blank-faced being sitting before them did not understand what was wrong. This confused Qui-Gon; he thought that the enormous cast on his face was enough of a clue.

The receptionist signaled for a protocol droid to take them back to the med-center itself. The droid paused when the Whiphid, Wookiee and cyborg followed them, but didn't say anything after seeing Yewmakkor's toothy grin.

The med center bay was as aggressively powder blue as the reception had been beige. It and the attendant droid looked a little well used, but acceptable. The droid stared back with unblinking black, sensor-eyes. It was gold-tinted, a metalized version of the hue of the local populace. After Qui-Gon sat down on the examination table, it approached.

"What is your malady?" it asked innocently. It held a scanner up to Qui-Gon's chest.

"It's his nose, you imbecilic machine!" Dooku almost yelled at it. The droid lowered the scanner and looked back at the older Jedi, its posture offended.

"There is no cause for raising your voice, Sir. My audio sensors are functioning at peak efficiency. I realize that your friend has suffered a trauma to his face, however I am unfamiliar with the bony growth at the center and wish to ascertain–"

Yewmakkor howled. Startled, the droid backed up. Dooku looked from it to the protocol droid still lingering by the door and back to the medical droid.

"You're locally programmed, aren't you?" he demanded. The blank-faced locals were humanoid, but they did not have noses.

"I am a fully capable of ministering to this being, Sir. I have been–"

"Does your database include our species?" Dooku advanced on the machine.

"I can extrapolate–"

"Damn!" Yewmakkor echoed Dooku's sentiment with her own exclamations about Outer Rim hicks and provincial spaceports too cheap to buy proper programming. Eenid slowly shook her head. Even Pyax-83 lowered its eyes.

"Give me your equipment; I'll do it," Dooku told it. The droid started to object. Dooku's lightsaber flew to his hand, the blue blade suddenly hummed next to the medical droid's head. It silently pointed toward a tray table of medical equipment and a storage container behind it. Dooku and Yemakkor helped themselves while Eenid stayed back with Pyax-83. Qui-Gon watched this activity with increasing dismay.

"Master, should we not find another med-center?"

"We don't have time. And I fixed your leg on Cuumiqk-Two, Padawan. I'm perfectly capable." Dooku pointed a lecturing finger at him. Qui-Gon had to admit that this was true, and that his Master was as well trained in emergency medical aid as any experience Jedi, but a leg was a long way from a nose.

Qui-Gon lay down on the examination table and waited for Dooku and Yewmakkor to sort out the equipment. He carefully measured his breathing, pushing away nervousness. The Force would guide his Master's hand.

Yewmakkor challenged Dooku about how many noses he had repaired.

"About as many as you have," Dooku retorted. Then Qui-Gon heard, "Don't do that, you'll get hair in it."

"Sirs, If I may–" There was a sudden snick as someone shut off the medical droid.

Qui-Gon tensed.

The two older Jedi seemed to have forged some kind of truce for the sake of the mission, and for his own sake, Qui-Gon had to admit, after he had been injured. However, Qui-Gon now feared that their cease-fire was breaking down at the worst possible time.

Qui-Gon opened his eyes as Dooku returned to the side of the examination table. Yewmakkor stood opposite him.

"I'm sorry, Master, that I could not avoid being injured," Qui-Gon stated. He had been meaning to say so to Dooku; he regretted that his injury had added a complication to their mission, and that he was on this table with them looking down at him. He now also hoped that his admission would focus his Master's attention on the task at hand.

"You could not have avoided it, Qui-Gon. Regrets are wasted energy." Dooku lowered a long, silver cylinder to the edge of the cast and began loosening it. The skin of Qui-Gon's cheeks tingled and hummed under the focused beam. "Even you do not have enough awareness or skill, yet, to prevent such a mishap."

Yewmakkor rumbled that awareness was not the problem. Some events were unknowable, and no connection to the Force, no matter how strong, could change that. Dooku bristled.

"That argument is the most common excuse used by slackers who lack the will power to apply themselves."

Yewmakkor growled.

Qui-Gon kept himself perfectly still as Dooku removed the cast. The air felt cool on his face. His nose started to throb. It had been some time since Eenid had applied the anesthetic. He closed his eyes, drawing strength from the Force. Both Masters sensed it. Yewmakkor rumbled approval.

"Of course he is," Dooku declared. The solid confidence his Master felt in him touched Qui-Gon deeply. A scanner hummed over his face.

Then Dooku lowered the bone knitter to his nose. It burned. Yewmakkor told Dooku that he was moving it too slowly. Dooku retorted that it was not too slow for a Human. Eenid asked if they shouldn't reduce the swelling more first to make sure that the bones would knit smoothly. The bone knitter went away and the burning in Qui-Gon's nose stopped.

"Give me that," Dooku demanded in a hurried, hushed voice. Yewmakkor growled that he should have asked for it in the first place and she told him to take some other things. Qui-Gon did not open his eyes to see what else his Master might have overlooked.

Qui-Gon focused his mind on suppressing the urge to sneeze. He felt long Wookiee hair tickling the side of his face. Something pressed next to his cheek and the burning and throbbing and pain disappeared, but the squishing and sucking and whirring sounds that followed were even more disturbing to him because he now couldn't feel what was going on.

Dooku muttered along with the Wookiee's cooing and little hoots about bones and noses. Qui-Gon silently accepted that this was a bad sign that his Master was talking to himself. He kept still and trusted the Force, but he had to fight back a cringe when he heard Eenid politely inquire about checking with the portmaster to see if there was another medical droid. Yewmakkor barked back that this wasn't necessary and commanded her Padawan to keep her attention on the cyborg.

They eventually finished, both taking away the instruments at the same time. His eyes opening slowly, Qui-Gon peeked up at them. A stiff, pale green shell covered his nose; he couldn't tell how much of the swelling had been healed but the patch bulged differently under one eye than it did under the other. He sniffed. Even numbed, his airway felt perfectly clear; at least that seemed to have gone well.

"It looks fine," Dooku said, though his voice lacked his usual confidence. Yewmakkor turned her head sideways. "It will look straighter when it's healed."

Qui-Gon did not ask for a mirror.

Qui-Gon supposed that his Master had been correct that they had not had time to look for another med-center for treating his nose. Several suspicious characters eyed them, and especially Pyas-83, as the portmaster led them to their new ship. Yemakkor's snarls sent many of them scurrying. Eenid kept a huge clawed hand on the cyborg's shoulder, her narrowed eyes suspicious and warning.

The trip back to Coruscant was uneventful save for the one time that Pyax-83 tried to access a data terminal on their ship. Eenid and Dookus' lightsabers had almost simultaneously blocked the move. That incident had produced the only expression–total shock–that Qui-Gon ever saw the cyborg make. Pyax-83 was not exactly their prisoner, but her presence on Coruscant was strongly encouraged by many of her former comrades who would be party to the negotiations that awaited the cyborg.

Qui-Gon's nose mostly stopped hurting after the first day. He took his bandage off to evaluate his new face in the mirror in the ship's private fresher. He presumed that it was technically healed, but he kept touching the new bulges on the side of his nose and checking his profile every time he went to the fresher.

The trip did give Qui-Gon time to ask Eenid and her Master about 'The Moment', when the Force flowed through them, full of primal but ephemeral rage that disappeared when spent. He meditated and learned about the Living Force and the difference between knowing, not knowing and the unknowable. Dooku sometimes listened, but often he scowled as he sat pointedly between Pyax-83 and the nearest computer terminal. Sometimes he looked as if he was about to say something critical, but his brown eyes would flick toward Qui-Gon's nose and he would visibly suppress his misgivings. Qui-Gon could sense it through their bond, unhappiness and disappointment directed inward, which was very disturbing. Qui-Gon had never sensed such self-doubt in his Master before.

When Qui-Gon asked Dooku if he wished him to stop, Dooku cut him off even before he had finished the question.

"No. Absolutely not. I'm disappointed that you would think such a thing of me. Just because I don't like something doesn't mean it isn't something you should have, Qui-Gon," he answered, his back straightening. "I've told you before that you are strong with the Living Force. You have finally recognized that for yourself and found a suitable teacher." His eyes flicked toward the Wookiee. "Though I think I can direct you to other instructors when we return to the Temple."

Dooku laid a hand on Qui-Gon's shoulder. "We will have very different paths, my Padawan; I've known that for years. Do not shy away from your own path, however misguided it might be, because I might be unhappy about it. I'll get over it. I'd be a poor Master if I didn't." Qui-Gon silently nodded, trying to understand this odd contradiction. Dooku looked pleased by his Padawan's confusion. "Do not ever doubt that you will be a great Jedi. As your Master, I will make sure of it."

It took them four days to reach the orbiting spaceport of Minadus where they were met by a senior team of Jedi with a large, fast ship to take them back the rest of the way to the Republic's capital planet where they handed over Pyax-83 to its fate.

A couple days later, Qui-Gon and Dooku sat together in one of the Temple's larger meal halls. Other Jedi around them quietly came and went with food and dishes and ate at their own tables.

"Are you going to have that fixed?"

The question had come out of nowhere. Qui-Gon paused, a piece of breakfast bread halfway to his mouth. Master Dooku sat across from him, his bowl of fruit and boiled grain still untouched as he casually wiped his spotless hands on a warmed hand wipe. He sat across from Qui-Gon at a small table that they often ate at.

Qui-Gon lowered his bread, letting his expression ask the question of what his Master was talking about.

Dooku tapped his own nose with one long finger.

Qui-Gon looked down at the new terrain of his face.

Exasperated Dooku put the hand wipe down. "You look cross-eyed when you do that, Qui-Gon. Are you going to have that fixed? It's certainly had time enough to heal. The droids in the med-center could probably take care of it in a few hours."

Qui-Gon suddenly realized that his Master was annoyed by his appearance. He was surprised himself that he had just gotten used to it. The droids had advised him that it was best to let the damage around his nose fully heal before they restored his appearance. He just hadn't gone back to have it done. Now, he realized that it really wasn't necessary, but his Master...

Dooku sat there, impatiently waiting for an affirmative answer. Qui-Gon knew immediately that he was not going to give it and that his Master was going to have to suffer the indignity of having a Padawan with a non-symmetric face. There wasn't much he could do about it. Qui-Gon knew it was his decision, and his nose.

"No," Qui-Gon answered directly. For a moment, Dooku's expression was not just of surprise, it was hurt, too.

Then he got over it.

Qui-Gon sensed his Master's 'Moment' passing into the Force and they ate together in peaceful and amiable silence.

– **END – **

(this story first posted on tf.n: 11-May-2006)

**Disclaimer:** All characters and situations belong to George and Lucasfilm; I'm just playing in their sandbox.


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